Bradley finds a home with Southeast Missouri State basketball team

Jarekious Bradley hadn't spent more than one year at the same school since his days at Memphis East High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

He'd bounced from Kent State to Midland College in Texas to East Mississippi Community College over three years.

He feels like he's finally found the place where he's supposed to be as he begins his second and final season at Southeast Missouri State.

Bradley, Southeast's lone preseason all-Ohio Valley Conference selection, is the Redhawks top returner from a season ago and will be called on to pick up where he left off last season.

"It was tough. It was tough trying to find a home, a place I could call home," Bradley said. "I transferred every year. I felt like when I came here I found a home here at SEMO. I finally got to play at a college where I didn't have to play one year and then transfer out. *... I'm staying here for two years and I get to graduate. I just really wanted to find a place like home, really, and have teammates and coaches that I could trust."

Bradley said that trust has come from knowing Southeast coach Dickey Nutt and assistant coach Jamie Rosser since he was a junior in high school.

He'd been recruited by Southeast among other schools, but was planning to go to prep school to work on getting his grades better, according to Rosser. Instead he was admitted as a non-qualifier at Kent State in 2010.

He was later released from the program after he was arrested in the summer of 2011.

Bradley was charged with one count of aggravated burglary and one count of criminal damaging after entering his ex-girlfriend's apartment without permission, demanding money that he thought was owed to him, according to reports.

The woman was injured during a physical confrontation with him while he tried to take money from her purse. He left when he was given money by others in the apartment.

The first-degree felony burglary charge was dismissed, but Bradley had to complete probation for second-degree misdemeanor criminal damaging charge.

He transferred to Midland College in Midland, Texas, where he averaged 14.9 points and 6.6 rebounds before his next move to East Mississippi Community College.

He was a first-team National Junior College Athletic Association All-American after averaging 21.1 points and helped East Mississippi reach the NJCAA tournament for the fourth straight year.

Bradley's next move was to be a Redhawk.

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He never would have had a collegiate basketball career if it hadn't been for finding another home when he was younger.

When he was in seventh grade, Bradley moved in with his brother Mario.

"It's really big ups to my brother, like in middle school not even going to school -- got kicked out of school -- to once I moved in with him my whole life changed," Bradley said about his brother, whose name is tattooed on his left forearm. "I got a curfew, I was doing chores. He had me doing all kinds of stuff -- treating me like a kid."

Bradley had played basketball since he was 7 years old, and had immediately loved it, but his brother provided him a wakeup call.

"He started telling me, 'You've got to start taking school serious if you want to continue to play basketball. If you want to get somewhere in basketball you've got to go to school,'" Bradley said. "That was kind of the main thing. He got me focused, got me right."

He credits Cheyenne Gibson, his high school coach, with helping him become the player that shined on the Show Me Center floor last season.

"I didn't know the meaning of hard work until he got there," Bradley said. "I was kind of lazy, and once I got to a point where I got too tired I didn't know how to push through it. He showed me how to push through it and get to that next step. 'When you're tired, keep pushing, keep pushing' and it's been like that ever since."

Bradley had plenty to push through last season, and continues to now. He still talks to Gibson a few times a month and visits him when he goes back home to Memphis.

He played through wrist and knee injuries as a junior, and had to have surgery on his wrist during the offseason.

He was able to play through the pain, and said his adrenaline helped him block it out during games, but during workouts and weightlifting his wrist definitely bothered him.

"I couldn't do push-ups, I couldn't do pull-ups, I couldn't do bench press -- none of that," Bradley said. "Now that I've had the surgery I got it back to 100 percent and I should be even better this year."

Even with the injuries he averaged 19.0 points and 6.3 rebounds per game en route to being a second-team All-OVC selection.

While those ailments no longer bother him, he's been sidelined for a couple of weeks.

He missed the Redhawks' two exhibition games this season with a severe thigh bruise, and Nutt is hopeful he'll be back in time for Southeast's season opener against Loyola-Marymont on Friday, but said there's no guarantee.

"He's had some injuries over the last couple of years that have kind of slowed him down a little bit, but he's getting better and better," Nutt said, "and I really think before this last injury here he was playing his best basketball."

Bradley said he didn't try to stand out when he arrived at Southeast for his junior season, and didn't consider himself a leader of last year's squad because that role already belonged to his cousin Tyler Stone.

With Stone graduating and moving on to play professionally overseas, Bradley feels like now is the time for him to step up to lead the Redhawks' charge for an Ohio Valley Conference title.

"Actually it was kind of like T-Stone's team, and I didn't want to come in and make it seem like I was going to come in and take over the team," Bradley said. "I was just playing, trying to kind of blend in, fit in."

If Bradley's standout junior season counted as blending in, then what is he capable of this season?

He made a team-high 75 3-pointers last season and was a 77.6 percent free-throw shooter. He was held to single-digit scoring just five times and scored 30 or more points twice to help the Redhawks to an 18-14 record and the quarterfinals of the OVC tournament.

"He's one of those silent assassins where when you get him on the court you probably can put 20 in the books," Rosser said. "He's probably going to get 20 regardless of what the case may be. He's laid back, and just a total team guy. A lot of times you get a lot of those junior college guys and guys who were highly recruited out of high school come into a situation like ours and just completely, if I can say it, be a punk, and just kind of like, 'I'm the man. I can do what I want to do.' He's totally the opposite."

Bradley admittedly is not a vocal leader, but rather leads by his play on the court.

At practice Monday, Nutt said to another player, "Pay attention to how JB gets open -- that's NBA getting open."

The NBA, or any professional career, is what Bradley has his sights set on after he graduates with his degree in general studies in May.

"He just wants to be the best he can be, and he certainly came from a very tough background," Nutt said. "And man, he's had to prove himself all his life."

Nutt called Bradley "brutally shy," and in the year that Bradley's played for him hasn't seen any other side of him.

"They say that around his teammates he won't shut up," Nutt said with a laugh. "I have not yet seen that. It's just 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' to me. I can barely get a word out of him."

"Jarekious is a special, special player," Nutt said. "But not only that, he's an outstanding person. I think Jarekious is probably one of the best players I've ever coached."